Alexandria the Great

By Anna Melville James, The Mail on Sunday

Last updated at 10:17 27 September 2004

We don't concentrate on all that new stuff here,' said the guide at Cairo's Museum of Ancient Antiquities, breezing past a display case dedicated to the Ptolemies, the last pharaonic dynasty (323-30BC) to rule ancient Egypt.

'That's all in Alexandria.'

Behind the glass, garish sarcophagi with European faces gazed out gloomily, as if they wished they were there too.

'That's what comes of coming late to a party,' they seemed to be saying. 'We sit in the corner while the flashy Ramseses and Tutankhamens get the attention.'

It wasn't always this way. Once the greatest of all the cities of antiquity, the port of Alexandria on Egypt's Mediterranean coast was the centre of the civilised world during the reign of the cosmopolitan Ptolemies.

Its fortunes have been erratic over the centuries, waning with the conquering Muslims in the 7th Century AD, rising again in the early 20th Century as a colonial retreat for intellectuals and writers.

Today the city's historical ghosts lie, barely perceptible, on top of each other like tissue-paper layers.

Expat resident Lawrence Durrell referred to 'Alex' as the capital of memory, and now Hollywood plans to remind us with two epics about the city's founder, the Macedonian hero Alexander the Great.

Oliver Stone's film, starring Colin Farrell, is released this November, while Leonardo DiCaprio sandals up for Baz Lurhmann's version in 2005.

There's no guarantee that Colin or Leo will prove effective PR for Alex - after all, films about Cleopatra VII, Alexandria's last Ptolemy ruler (with her son) and the generic Hollywood choice for 'Most Convincing Ancient Egyptian', have not inspired a tourist rush to rival the pyramids.

However, the three-hour excursion from Cairo certainly peppers up the more familiar sights and stories of an Egyptian visit.

You'll also have gone further than Alexander himself or either film production: none actually visited Alexandria.

Alexander commissioned the great city after taking Egypt from the Persian empire, but was killed in Asia before he saw it; the film companies thought Thailand a more authentic setting.

Authentic or not, the ancient city is long gone, racked by earthquakes, floods, indifference and old age. Very little remains to be seen.

Today's corniche city is part Marbella with minarets - a functional seaside resort popular with Cairenes - and part colonial fantasia, stitched together by genteel squares such as Midan Saad Zaghloul, overlooked by Durrell's beloved Hotel Cecil and French patisseries where waitresses in aprons still serve tarte tatin.

At the centre, old Alex's railway station resembles an Agatha Christie film set.

To the east, Montazah, an oasis of palms and the palaces of former king Farouk I, now houses top-end hotels and beaches.

You can sunbathe here. The private beaches are cleaner, emptier and relaxed in dress code; although there's something cooling about swimming fully clothed, which is mandatory for women on public beaches.

In the compact old city it's possible to 'do' the sights in a day - and Alex's wide breezy streets and friendliness make walking pleasurable, especially at night when they fill with a Mediterranean promenade.

It's not just time but style that has reduced Alex's past to hints.

Unlike the great stone monuments of Upper Egypt that lend themselves well to eternity, Alexandria was a capital of intellectual artefacts, of ideas, trade, delicate Nile delta pottery and mosaics.

Its most famous monument was the Mouseion, a collection of observatories, laboratories and the Great Library of Alexandria, torched in 293AD by Christian mobs.

The vast new Bibliotheca Alexandrina, opened in 2002, is both a homage and a renaissance for modern Alex.

The city is not without ruins, though. Pompey's pillar is a giant granite testament to Roman ego, while the pretty Roman amphitheatre is used for theatrical performances.

In its gardens you stumble upon hastily stacked statues, drawn up from the bay of Alexandria and worn by the sea into eerie Munch-like screams.

Diving excavations in the bay, into which a large proportion of the ancient city flopped, have turned up the remains of the Pharos Lighthouse, one of the seven wonders of the world and debatably Cleopatra's palace.

Grand statues, sphinxes and obelisks lie amid the murk, with plans for an underwater walkway wheeled out periodically, which would ensure Alex a place on any tourist itinerary.

For now, you have to dive among the ruins. Or you can visit Fort Qaitbey, built on the Pharos site, to contemplate what's hidden beneath the waves.

At the amphitheatre I was dwarfed by a crown of Hathor, the Egyptian love goddess, and marvelled at what must have been a gargantuan statue.

Yet this archaeological booty seems a little like lost property.

Not so at the Graeco-Roman Museum - a courtyarded delight where there was 'none of that old stuff', only the weird and wonderful Ptolemaic synthesis of classical and ancient Egyptian styles of art and sculpture.

The 15 Ptolemy rulers - kicked off by Ptolemy I, one of Alexander's generals - were originally Greek, yet styled themselves 'Egyptian'.

With smiling sphinxes, naturalist figures in Egyptian dress and Caucasian mummy masks, the Ptolemy attempt at Egyptian art looks like a parody which, in a political sense, it was.

In the coin room, Alexander in profile was more Marlon Brando circa Mutiny On The Bounty than Colin Farrell, while nearby Cleopatra revealed herself as a woman best described as handsome.

Alexander is at the back of every Alexandrian's mind. A common greeting is 'Abu Iskander', roughly meaning 'father of Alexander', a reminder of the pride in the city's heritage.

Of course, the real obsession is the location of Alexander's tomb. Claims range from Memphis (the old ancient Egyptian capital) to the bay of Alexandria.

There are even claims he was buried consecutively in three different tombs.

It's not just archaeologists who try to solve the riddle: there have been 15 private searches in 25 years by people described at the Ministry of Antiquities as simply 'citizens'.

Perhaps someone will stumble on the tomb. Alex is fond of unexpectedly revealing secrets, whether through roadworks unearthing Graeco-Roman ruins, the man who found a marble tunnel in his house while doing DIY or the donkey that fell through the ground at Kom ash-Shuqqafa into catacombs protected by Egyptian gods in Roman armour.

When a woman fell through the roof of the city's ancient drains ten years ago, rumours abounded that Alexander had called her because he wanted a wife.

It's that acceptance of mysterious, hidden worlds that is the key to understanding Alexandria, a city that offers up its memories to those who are prepared to search - or at least to remember they are there, just below the surface.

A five-night two-centre break - three nights'B&B at five-star Cairo Mena House and two in five-star Helnan Palestine in Alexandria - costs from £929 per person, including sightseeing in both cities and scheduled flights from Heathrow.